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The Burning Bridge
The Burning Bridge is the second book in the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. Synopsis For years the kingdom of Araluen has been safe from the evil lord Morgarath and his army of vicious wargals and Kalkara. It is even better now that the Kalkara are slain. But now he has found a way out of the mountins in which he has been exiled for many years and is preparing to fight. Araluen is soon to be at war. Will and his friend Horace along with another fellow Ranger, Gilan, are chosen as envoys to the country of Celtica, but the mission takes a turn for the worst. All the Celticans have gone, the towns are utterly abandoned. Morgarath has found a way to bring his army of Wargals over the mountain pass which has kept Araluen safe, he has enslaved the Celticans and used them to build a massive bridge across the fissure. Can Will and his friends stop Moragarath's plan before it is too late? Plot 'A Mission' The book starts with Will and Halt pursuing a group of Wargals who have broken free of the Mountains of Rain and Night . They come across the wargals who are attacking a man who says that he was on a mission for Lord Morgarath . Halt aims an arrow at the four wargals yelling at them to stop, this momentarilly distracts the man being attacked and he is a killed by a Wargal who moments later, ends up dead, slain by one of Halt's arrows. A brief skirmish ensues which ends up with the wargals dead. Will however is almost killed when a Wargal charges him and Tug and he missfires a shot. Halt saves him in time and reasures his apprentice; Halt then moves to examine the man who was killed by the wargals and realises that it is Dirk Reacher , a man he chased out of Araluen five or six years ago for murder. Halt searches his belongings and discovers plans for the upcoming battle. When the two are back in their cabin at Redmont, Gilan suddenly turns up in the middle of the night. The younger ranger is disapointed to discover that Halt and Will don't seem at all surprised that he was turned up at a ridiculour hour. After the initial greetings, Gilan reveals that he has been sent on a mission to Celtica to get support for Duncan for the upcoming war. Due to an old superstition he needs to have two other people with him and decides to take Will and Horace along as they can be sparred from the upcoming preperations for the battle and the main battle itself. The next day they set out for Celtica. Horace starts off unsure how to act around Gilan, still used to being wary of the Rangers due to the superstitions surrounding them. Gilan quickly puts Horace at ease, and at the same time teases Will which Horace finds funny. When they set up camp for the night Horace and Gilan engage in a sparring match with their swords. Horace is astonished to discover that Gilan is an excellent sword master and he is unable to defeat him despite trying to hack of the Ranger's head towards the end. Gilan then reveals that he was trained by MacNeil, who was a legendary swordmaster and then goes on to explain how he ended up in the Ranger corps and was apprenticed by Halt. Later on he teaches Horace and Will the double-knife technique, he teaches it primarily to Will but Horace picks some of it up as well which proves to be very useful later on. 'The Mountain Pass' When they arrive at Celtica, they find the towns utterly deserted. Horace speculates that the inhabitants have been wiped out by some mysterious disease, which Will believes for a few moments until Gilan swiftly casts aside the theory, pointing out that there aren't any bodies around. They stop and make camp in one of the abandoned towns, sleeping in a deserted house which Will and Horace aren't too thrilled with. The next day they move on and come to another town, Gilan rides on ahead leaving the two boys to set up camp. Horace and Will start practicing their fighting techniques and become so caught-up in what they are doing that they don't notice two bandits sneaking up on them. Horace quickly engages the two in a swordfight and they soon realise that they are outmatched despite Horace being only a boy in their eyes. Will is about to intervene but Gilan appears and tells him to leave Horace to finish them off which he does quickly. After tying them up, Gilan reveals that he knew the bandits were there the whole time and he let them sneak up on the two boys to teach Will a lesson as, being a Ranger, he should have been more aware. They then meet Evanlyn, who claims to be a maid to an Araluen noble. She tells them that her mistress was killed by Wargals, the lady having been staying with the king of Celtica, and she was the only one to escape. When the three of them follow the Wargals they discover that a gigantic bridge is in the process of being built across the Fissure between Celtica and Morgarath's land. They also discover that the King's army is to be trapped on the Plains of Uthal, surrounded by Morgarath's army and a huge Skandian force. They decide that the only way to save the country is to burn the bridge. They manage to do this, but Will and Evanlyn are captured by Skandians as they work to keep the fire burning. ' 'Battlecamp Meanwhile, Gilan reaches the camp and as he reports about Evanlyn to the King, he is devastated as he realises this must mean his daughter, Cassandra, crown Princess of Araluen must be dead as Evanlyn was her lady-in-waiting. It is later found out that Evanlyn was actually Princess Cassandra, King Duncan's daughter, who was thought to be dead. She took her lady-in-waiting's identity in order to protect herself. Horace rushes back to the battlefield in time for the fight to begin. 'The Battle' After, he tells the King and his aides about what is going to happen, the army starts to get prepared for the army that is supposed to attack them from behind, Halt is sent to take care of them with a force of cavalry and archer units (an archer and pikeman). In the middle of the battle, Morgarath calls a truce and challenges Halt to a duel, but king Duncan forbids it. Then, unexpectedly, Horace challenges Morgarath to single combat. About to be defeated by Morgarath defense, Horace, in a last-ditch attempt to win the battle, throws himself into the path of the battlehorse in order to throw it off-balance. He is successful, and stabs Morgarath, using the double knife defense to win the battle, then collapses, passing out from his injuries. He later wakes up in the medical tent to find Sir Rodney giving him a telling-off for being so foolish as to issue a challenge to Morgarath, however, Rodney is secretly proud of his student. The Wargals start retreating back up Three Step Pass after it was discovered that Morgarath manipulated them with his mind, and the Skandians escape with Will and Evanlyn (Princess Cassandra). Halt tries to rescue them and he launches a one-man assault on the skiff, but he is too late. The book ends with Halt standing on the seashore, looking after the wolfship and promising Will that he will find him and rescue him. Characters *Halt *Will *Tug *Abelard *Horace *Gilan *Alyss *Lady Pauline *Sir Rodney *Baron Arald *Morgarath *King Duncan *Cassandra *Bart *Carney *Sir Montague Gallery The various covers the Burning Bridge has been published under, Australian Ranger's Apprentice.jpg|First Australian Edition Burning bridge book two.jpg|Australian and English cover RangersApprenticeBurningBridge.jpg|American Cover British Ranger's Apprentice.jpg|First English Edition Czech Ranger's Apprentice.jpg|Czech Edition burningbridgegrijzejager.jpg|Dutch cover skyggens-laerling(burning bridge).jpg Category:Series Category:Books Category:Ranger's Apprentice Series Category:Articles needing Improvement